OUR NAME
The name Neimeth was chosen to honour Mr. Robert Neimeth, an American who contributed immensely to the establishment of Pfizer in Nigeria. He relentlessly used his position to stop Pfizer’s early divestment from Nigeria as a result of his belief in the economic potentials of Nigeria and its strategic importance in Africa. He could rightly be said to be the “alien father” of Pfizer operations in Nigeria, especially as a manufacturer. He retired as President, Pfizer International Pharmaceuticals Group in January 1997 and in May same year, Pfizer Inc. divested its shares in Pfizer Products Plc.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Prior to this divestment and subsequent change of name to Neimeth, the company had operated in Nigeria for 40 years, manufacturing, marketing, and distributing Pfizer brands of pharmaceutical and veterinary products in tablets, capsules, ointment/cream, powder, injectables, and oral liquid forms. During the 40 year period (1957-1997), the company established the first pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Nigeria at Aba, which was destroyed during the Nigerian civil war. It then set up and opened the most modern pharmaceutical plant in the West African sub-region in 1976 at Oregun, Lagos. These represent great milestones for a company that started as a trading venture in 1957 at a location in Ebute Metta, Lagos.
OUR METAMORPHOSIS
At inception, Neimeth business operation was anchored on its manufacturing and distribution licence agreements with Pfizer. The manufacturing license allowed Neimeth to manufacture market and distribute Pfizer’s traditional brands in Nigeria while the distribution agreement allowed Neimeth to distribute the newer, high-tech Pfizer brands imported as finished products. This cooperation with Pfizer has remained in place and was recently strengthened when Pfizer allowed Neimeth to sell TCP in the West African market. Also following these agreements, Neimeth benefits from Pfizer technical supervision to ensure maintenance of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards to international levels.
NEW OPPORTUNTIES: NEW CHALLENGES.
With the divestment, however, Neimeth now enjoys the flexibility to develop new alliances with other international companies to increase its product portfolio, establish new business opportunities, as well as develop its own brand of generic products to meet local healthcare needs. She is also at liberty to develop her own new products from natural or synthetic moieties for the enhancement of our healthcare delivery needs. This entails collaboration with local researchers in specific disease areas.
Thus enormous opportunities and potentials are now open to Neimeth for business expansion and growth. The company is now better placed to meet her new vision/mission having shed the compulsion to align with Pfizer’s global vision, which does not necessarily take cognisance of key disease areas in our developing world or environment.
